Kamen Rider tops the Japanese box office again, with this final phase of the Heisei Era putting a cap on the current chapter of their long-running superhero franchise. Kamen Rider Heisei Generations FINAL: Build & Ex-Aid with Legend Riders came in at #1 on the charts last week, surpassing the success of last year's annual winter crossover event, proving the lone masked heroes (when brought together so as not to be quite so lone anymore) still have what it takes to capture an audience.
As previously mentioned, the film gathers the title heroes from several past incarnations of the long and storied Rider saga, returning a number of lead stars (and multiple supporting actors) to our screens for one last hurrah (for now). Among them were Fukushi Sato as Gentaro aka high school student...

After a short break from the high drama discussed in our last review, the Ultraman Geed series picks right back up for the final leg of its sprint toward the finish line. And with only four episodes left to make it happen, this show is pulling out all the stops, laying one side of the story to bed while digging up others from a restless tomb. It's daddy issues galore in episodes 22 and 23!
We begin as the opportunistic writer Ishikari Aire arrives at her secluded home at night and senses she's being watched. Out of nowhere, the villainous Fukuide Kei is upon her, as creepy as he's ever looked, just standing there motionless, as if he's been waiting in that spot the whole time. It's a bit alarming, since she helped the poor alien through his hobo phase after Big Daddy Belial was killed...

Ah, hell. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry decided to drop trailers for their mega-blockbuster these past two weeks. Must be another Star Wars December. This time, it's Ernest Cline's heavyweight pop culture champion Ready Player One, the bestselling book given life via the man who helped generate a large part of the very fan fervor his sci-fi adventure sought to invoke - famed director Steven Spielberg. And with this second extended look at the film, we have a ton of new iconic characters, images, and music cues to add to the growing pile that has nerds of all ages adjusting in their seats. Among these totemic titans is the anime super-robot tearing up the skies in a battle for the Oasis. No, it's not Voltron, like so many have misidentified him as. And no, it's not the Iron Giant, though he ...

Unleash your inner swordsman as you feast your eyes on this stunning faux trailer from writer/director/producer Okabe Junya of the Brave Storm super robot film. Those who are fans of Japan's unique offerings from the tokusatsu subgenre, both classic and current, may have something to smile about as the cast cracks their knuckles for this action-packed short with a surprise guest we didn't see coming.
Yamamoto Chihiro shows her prowess in the current Ultraman Geed TV series, as the sword-wielding badass Toba Laiha. Now, she fights for her life against a crew of vicious assassins. Meanwhile, the classic film hero Zatoichi is brought to life once more with the spellbinding performance of 1984's Kamen Rider ZX himself, Sugata Shun. The blind swordsman faces off with several terrifying nin...

The Jurassic Park franchise, like the prehistoric beasts that terrorize increasingly dumb humans in these films, refuses to die. With this in mind, the monstrously lucrative Jurassic World emerged, bursting free from its genetically-engineered egg, created in a lab by a committee of people dedicated to give the masses what they kinda-maybe-sorta wanted. And, despite the unmitigated disaster that ensued upon the release of these monsters (and that's just the critical response to the movie!), the powers that be called for another sequel in this unending journey down the reptilian throat of the T-Rex. At some point, we've got to reach the stomach acid that ends us for good, but I'm guessing that may not be for a while. In the meantime, here's a trailer.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom see...

Here's a new promotional video for Pacific Rim: Uprising, the sequel to the original post-apocalyptic monster movie where humanity must fight off extinction with the enormous war machines known as Jaegers. John Boyega of Star Wars: The Last Jedi leads the cast of world-saving pilots, but one actor that was curiously left out of much of the movie's footage shown so far was Rinko Kikuchi, whose integral character had been a welcome presence in the first Pacific Rim and whose absence was sorely felt by this viewer when the sequel began rolling out promo for its 2018 release.
Right off the bat, director Steven S. DeKnight (Marvel's Daredevil series), who takes the reigns from creative maestro Guillermo Del Toro (The Shape of Water) for this entry, namechecks some of the godfathers of toku...

Marvel Studios' Avengers: Infinity War promises to be the largest collection of iconic, larger-than-life heroes the landscape of live-action cinema has ever seen. But what if things had been just a little bit different? What if the world needed saving not by the cape-flapping, shield-tossing likes of the Avengers, but by some other Disney icons? We all know their names. We hear their footsteps and tremble. Straight out of the vault, they've begun their march toward victory against the terror of Thanos and his horde of deadly minions. It's the Walt Disney cartoons! And they're here to do some avenging.
For the five people left alive who haven't seen it, the Avengers: Infinity War trailer dropped last week and quickly broke records on streaming giant Youtube for the most views in the sh...

The Power Rangers brand is having something of a silent renaissance of late. While the television series has gone on for years, almost invisible to most adults yet never off the airwaves with new episodes for more than a single year since the franchise's start in the early 90s, the Rangers have branched out considerably to other entertainment mediums, often with strong results.
The Teenagers With Attitude, and the many young adults that launched from their footsteps in the years after Angel Grove was a mere glimmer in their visors' display panel, dominated the attention of many curious watchers this year, whether it be on our phones with games like Power Rangers Legacy Wars, or on the big screen with the franchise's first feature-length movie in decades. There's also Power Rangers Hyp...

The King of Monsters is stomping onto our screens this December with tons of cataclysmic holiday cheer! Godzilla and all his giant, radioactive frenemies are showing up for this event, where several of the franchise's most popular films will appear on the Criterion Channel from streaming site FilmStruck.
Here's what Criterion had to say about this endeavor, what may be a prelude to an eventual physical home video release:
Godzilla fans, rejoice! This month, we're offering you the chance to go on a veritable viewing rampage with this massive collection of 14 kaiju classics! Running from Honda's original GODZILLA (1954) to the director's sci-fi drama TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA (1975)—arriving on 12/8!
Among the Showa Era classics on offer, we have:
Godzilla
Godzilla Raids Again
...

Oh, snap. The Ultraman Geed television series is about to get an infusion of awesome when it upgrades to movie form with a special guest star. The great wandering hero known as Kurenai Gai, Ultraman Orb himself is stopping by to lend his personal brand of badass to this cinematic kaiju-busting event. And he's not the only one showing up to mix it up with the monsters of this particular Earth in the expanding Ultraman multiverse. A brief trailer for the new movie has dropped, and it offers a quick taste of what's in store for fans of both series as Geed's final television episodes approach.
Joining Hamada Tatsuomi as young lead Riku / Geed and Ozawa Yuta as salaryman-turned-superhero Leito / Zero, we have the previous year's lead hero Ishiguro Hideo as charming alien warrior Gai as wel...